Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments

Distant lands, the beautiful gardens of splendid palaces, the sea, the jungle and its beasts, even the desert, are the wonderfully exotic settings for the Just So Stories
Inspired by Kipling's natural empathy with the animal world and by his delight in the foibles and the weaknesses of human nature, they are breathtakingly imaginative fables whose subjects range from the animals themselves to the origins of things. The stories are linked by poems and scattered with the author's own illustrations, which, with their hidden jokes and puzzles, add an intriguing dimension to the volume. Though written for children, the Just So Stories are so strikingly apt and the style so idiosyncratically rich that the book has become a classic transcending the boundaries of age.

Synopsis

A family favorite since its initial publication in 1902, here are all 12 original stories, including how the leopard got his spots, how the elephant got his trunk, and how the alphabet was invented. Full-color woodcut illustrations.

About the Author

Rudyard Kipling was born in Bombay in 1865. During his time at the United Services College, he began to write poetry, privately publishing Schoolboy Lyrics in 1881. The following year he started work as a journalist in India, and while there produced a body of work, stories, sketches, and poems  including "Mandalay," "Gunga Din," and "Danny Deever"  which made him an instant literary celebrity when he returned to England in 1889. While living in Vermont with his wife, an American, Kipling wrote The Jungle Books, Just So Stories, and Kim  which became widely regarded as his greatest long work, putting him high among the chronicles of British expansion. Kipling returned to England in 1902, but he continued to travel widely and write, though he never enjoyed the literary esteem of his early years. In 1907, he became the first British writer to be awarded the Nobel Prize. He died in 1936.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Note on the Text

How the Whale got his Throat
How the Camel got his Hump
How the Rhinoceros got his Skin
How the Leopard got his Spots
The Elephant's Child
The Sing-Song of Old Man Kangaroo
The Beginning of the Armadilloes
How the First Letter was Written
How the Alphabet was Made
The Crab that Played with the Sea
The Cat that Walked by Himself
The Butterfly that Stamped

Notes

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What Our Readers Are Saying

Average customer rating 5 (1 comments)

I adored these stories as a kid. They are short and fun to read, rich with exotic imagery that swept me away to the jungle (although not all the stories are set in India) and with amusing, often slightly disturbing surprises. Who doesn’t cringe at the thought of Crocodile pulling on Elephant’s stubby nose, or the grate wedged painfully in Whale’s mouth? The inventiveness of each story is fantastic, every one ending with a bit of an “aha!” moment. This collection is even more approachable for a young reader than “The Jungle Book,” and for me began a lifelong love of Kipling.